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Florence Cioffi, a woman who survived 9/11 and was just days from her 60th birthday, was killed in a New York City car accident on January 24 when she was run over by a vehicle driven by computer software executive George Anderson just before 11:00 PM on Water Street in Manhattan. Mr. Anderson kept driving, but returned to the scene a short time later, where he was observed by police officers to have bloodshot eyes, smell of alcohol, and have slurred speech. Mr. Anderson refused a police request to take a breathalyzer test. Police immediately administered a blood alcohol test; the results have not been announced yet.

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Global positoning devices (GPS), although a lifesaver to some, have been blamed for numerous New York car accidents over the last few years. Most recently, earlier this month, a driver from California caused a fiery car accident when he turned on to railroad tracks in Bedford Hills and his vehicle was struck by an oncoming train when the car became stuck on the tracks.

The driver, a 32 year old who works for a SIlicon Valley tech company, claims that the GPS device in his vehicle instructed him to turn right onto the train tracks leading to the January 4 New York motor vehicle accident with the oncoming train. The driver exited the vehicle before the accident and was not injured.

Since 2005, according to Dan Brucker of Metro-North railroad, a growing number of out of state drivers have informed police that they were following GPS devices instead of paying attention to signs at parkway entrances. A spokeman for Garmin, the largest GPS seller in North America, indicated that 15% of cars are now equipped with the GPS devices.

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2007 continued a trend of numerous New York car accidents on suburban New York roadways dominated by aggressive, inattentive drivers causing numerous car accidents and fatalities. According to Captain John Hodges of the Westchester County Police, the main causes of these New York car crashes and auto deaths are: speeding, driving while intoxicated, following too closely, taking curves too fast and weaving in and out of traffic.

New York car accidents are also being caused by inattentive drivers who are speaking on cell phones, adjusting their global positioning devices, and listening to their IPods with earphones. Additionally, a new and shocking trend that has been observed by motorists and police patrols alike is young drivers text messaging while driving!

Fatal accidents in New York rose from 2005 to 2006 in the counties of Westchester, Rockland and Putnam. Statistics are not yet available for 2007. DWI arrests on Westchester County roadways increased from 470 to 494 in 2007 due to more aggressive enforcement, according to Capt. Hodges.

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Everyone in New York, and around the country, has shopped at the “big box stores”–Wal-Mart, Costco, Target, BJ’s, Lowe’s, and Home Depot, to name a few. Heavy merchandise is stacked high up on the shelves, as much as twenty to thirty feet in the air, and the question is: “Are these stores safe?” The answer for many of our personal injury clients in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, White Plains, and the entire lower Hudson Valley is a resounding “No!” Every day around the country, customers at these establishments are being seriously injured by falling merchandise, which has been improperly stacked, carelessly arranged, or placed without the necessary safety cables or other devices to prevent accidents. The ABC News program “20-20” highlighted the dangers of falling merchandise accidents a few years ago.

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New York Trials are structured differently in Manhattan and Bronx personal injury cases than they are in the remainder of the lower Hudson Valley and other boroughs of New York City. In a New York County construction accident, or a Bronx slip and fall case, for example, there are “full trials”, meaning that all issues are litigated before a jury in the same trial: issues as to the fault of the parties, as well as the injuries suffered by the plaintiff, the treatment performed by the doctors involved and the all damages issues involving the permanency of the injuries.

Conversely, in Queens County, for example, as well as the lower Hudson Valley jurisdictions such as Westchester County, Dutchess County, Rockland County, and Orange County, to use some examples, except in rare instances, trials are “bifurcated.” Bifurcated means split into two parts. So, as an example, in a Westchester County motor vehicle accident, the jury first hears testimony and considers evidence only of the negligence or fault of the parties involved in the car accident, and first makes a decision as to whether the defendant(s) and or the plaintiff are legally responsible for the accident. (For a description of how we prove the defendant’s negligence in a personal injury case, please see our November 13, 2007 blog entitled “Burden of Proof in New York Personal Injury Cases”). It is only if a jury finds the defendant(s) partially or wholly at fault for the accident in a bifurcated trial that a jury then decides the amount of damages to award the plaintiff in a bifurcated case.

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In a joint study by the Fiscal Policy Institute and the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) , there were some interesting and surprising results which may give politicians who are demanding more border control and higher fences some hesitation in making those demands. Specifically, the study found that a typical New York immigrant lives in the United States legally, speaks English well, has attended some college and lives in a home owning family that earns $71,000 per year. The study found that foreign born residents contribute 229 billion into New York’s economy, accounting for 22.4% of the state’s gross domestic product. Other interesting and important findings are as follows: The great majority of the New York suburbs’ immigrant population is in the United States legally; There are approximately 130,000 New York undocumented immigrants, from Westchester and Long Island combined, which make up only 21% of the overall immigrant population in New York; Despite a major focus on day laborers, they comprise less than 1/2 of one percent of the immigrant population in the New York suburbs;
Foreign born employees, legal and illegal, account for 82% of housekeepers, 58% of cooks and almost half of construction workers; importantly, foreign born workers make up 41% of physicians, 28% of professors, and 19% of financial managers–perhaps that statistic should be repeated to Rudolph Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson and Hillary Clinton as they fight over who will be the toughest “keeping our borders safe.”

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The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that there will be substantial delays, of at least one year in some cases, in processing citizenship and green card applications. These delays were brought on by two significant events: First, early in 2007, the USCIS announced that fees for all applications would be increased on July 30, 2007. For example, the fee for submission of the N-400 Naturalization application went up 66% from $405.00 to $675.00 on July 30th of this year. As a result of this announcement, applications filed in July and August of 2007 were double that in the same two months in 2006. In all, USCIS received 2.5 million applications in July and August of 2007. The second major development prompting increased filings was the anti-immigration debate in Congress this year, which coincided with the USCIS announcing that they were preparing a more difficult test for aspiring citizens.

As of November 16th, the Texas and Vermont Processing Centers are just now acknowledging receipt of naturalization petitions received in July, 2007. The processing backlogs at present are completely different than those in the past involving immigrants seeking legal residency from countries like Mexico and the Philippines, in which annual limits on green cards have often resulted in delays of several years. The USCIS has announced that with the revenue from increased fees, it will hire 1,500 new employees, an increase of its current staff of 15,000, to assist in clearing the backlog. The goal is apparently to complete naturalization applications submitted this past summer in time for these applicants to vote in the November, 2008 elections.

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November 2007 has been a treacherous month on the Bronx River Parkway in New York. On November 13, 2007, we did a report “Fatal Accident on the Bronx River Parkway…” describing the New York fatal car crash in which a Yonkers couple, Bernard and Phyllis Cecere, was killed when their vehicle was struck by an apparently speeding car driven by 19 year old Justin Martinez near Oak Street in Yonkers.

On November 26, 2007, an Orange County man was killed and a Peekskill woman seriously injured in a nearly head on collision on the Bronx River Parkway just north of the Virginia Road exit. On a curvy section of the roadway heading southbound, Dawn Young was driving a 2004 Jeep Liberty when she apparently crossed the double yellow line, colliding with a 2005 Mazda being driven by Gerald Wolfe, who died from his injuries at Westchester Medical Center. Ms. Young’s injuries are not considered life threatening. This was second fatal accident in the exact same location of the Parkway; back in October of 1999, three people were killed when a carjacking suspect at the wheel of a stolen Cadillac veered onto the southbound side of the Parkway near Virginia Road and struck the vehicle of a Chappaqua couple on their way home from church. Ironically, after several years of delay due to federal government regulations requiring the installation of storm water basins, construction work was scheduled to begin the same day of the most recent fatal car crash to install center barriers from Cemetery Road at exit 23 to Lafayette Avenue at Exit 27. However, work was delayed due to the inclement weather conditions.

The Westchester County Police have indicated that it is too early to determine if alcohol, drugs, the poor weather conditions, or slippery roads were factors in the fatal car accident.

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A subpoena is a command for the person receiving this document to appear in Court or at a deposition, either to give testimony or to bring documents. A failure to comply with the subpoena can result in a financial penalty to the person subpoenaed, or in extremely rare instances, to a short jail stint for contempt. A subpoena “duces tecum” is a Latin term meaning that the recipient must bring documents to Court, or to a deposition in a lawyer’s office. A personal subpoena is a command to appear in Court or a deposition to give sworn testimony. In New York, a frequent use of a subpoena is to command the “non-party deposition” of a witness to an accident.

Our office recently used a non-party subpoena in a Brooklyn slip and fall case, to obtain the testimony of a passerby who observed our client fall, and also noted that landlord had failed to apply salt or sand to the patch of ice where the accident occurred. If a witness is reluctant to become involved in a case, there is often no other alternative to ensure that this person appears in Court other than a subpoena. Years ago, we were involved in a Bronx construction accident in which our client had fallen from a ladder and suffered very serious injuries. A co-worker was aware that he ladder was in very poor condition, but refused to appear in Court voluntarily. Therefore, in order to get this vital testimony before a jury, we were forced to subpoena this witness to Court.

As for the subpoena duces tecum, this is often used to compel medical providers such as hospitals, physicians, physical therapists, or chiropractors to provide their records of treatment of plaintiffs in New York slip and fall accidents, car accident cases, New York medical malpractice cases, defective product cases, or New York trucking accidents, to name a few.

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In New York personal injury cases, such as a Brooklyn slip and fall accident, Bronx motor vehicle accident, or a Westchester construction accident, probably the most important legal procedure in the case before trial is the deposition. In a deposition, also known as an Examination Before Trial (EBT), the parties to a lawsuit, or witnesses to an accident, are placed under oath and asked questions about the accident, the injuries suffered by the Plaintiff, and generally everything they observed on the date of the car accident, trip and fall accident, or fall from a scaffold or ladder, to use a few examples.

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